Mak­ing the move to SAP S/4HANA isn’t a light deci­sion, and it’s cer­tain­ly not an easy process. There are sure to be unfore­seen bumps along the way that will affect the scope, bud­get, and time­line of the project. 

To get ahead, orga­ni­za­tions can take the time to under­stand what com­mon fac­tors lead to failed projects, what steps they can take to avoid them, and how to plan for bet­ter deci­sion-mak­ing when think­ing about their own trans­for­ma­tion­al projects. 

ASUG News sat down with John Belden, project exe­cu­tion audit prac­tice lead at UpperEdge, an orga­ni­za­tion that helps cus­tomers nego­ti­ate their deals with SAP and sys­tem inte­gra­tors (SI). John has more than 30 years of expe­ri­ence imple­ment­ing SAP sys­tems and was respon­si­ble for a $220 mil­lion dol­lar project rec­og­nized as one of the most suc­cess­ful deploy­ments of SAP at glob­al man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­ny, Timken. 

We dis­cussed some of the steps an orga­ni­za­tion can proac­tive­ly take to mit­i­gate risks, as well as how to focus and plan for a suc­cess­ful project. In this first arti­cle of our mul­ti­part series, we focus on iden­ti­fy­ing com­mon traits that can lead to failed projects and the ear­ly first steps orga­ni­za­tions can take to avoid them. 

Sharon: What fac­tors lead to major trans­for­ma­tion­al project failures?